Doug Cross
Doug belongs to: Royal British Legion Seaman's Mess
Doug was born in South Shields in 1919. He joined the merchant navy at 15 with great ideas of adventure. During World War Two Bill was in the Arctic convoys and at the D-Day landings dropping off armaments.
Doug was interviewed by Kylea Little on 15 November 2005. The interview took place at South Shields Royal British Legion and lasted 55 minutes and 5 seconds.
The Spanish Civil War part two
"At the same time, when we were in Valencia, they came over bombing the harbour, trying to hit the ships"
At the same time, when we were in Valencia, they came over bombing the harbour, trying to hit the ships, mainly, you see. And they hit an English ship further along the quay from us, killed the captain on that ship with shrapnel, and the bomb landed on the, the bomb landed on each side of our ship hitting the barges that were…the ship, the way it lay, it didn’t lie alongside the quay, it was lying bows onto the quay with the moorings out the buoys, so that the ship was lying bows onto the quayside and they had barges alongside loading from the ships’ derricks.
And the bomb hit barges on each side of the ship. And quite a lot of shrapnel peppered our ship but luckily nobody was hit. And it blew our oranges sky-high. There were oranges flying around like shrapnel. Oranges had spattered all over the ship. The barges just naturally just sank where they were, and the Spaniards that were working on the barges by some miracle didn’t get killed. They dived into the water when the bombs were coming down and our ship had shrapnel holes in the funnel.
Doug has 20 memories in the memorynet:
Doug's memories with a Travel theme:
Swimming with sharks- Dorothy Irons
- Joan Horsbourgh
- The Spanish Civil War
- The Russia convoys part one
- The Russia convoys part two
Continuous Certificate of Discharge- Port Saint John
- In a Calcutta Park
- I Sailed the World with 30 Men by Joan Horsburgh
Doug's other memories:
- Joining the merchant navy
- The Spanish Civil War part two
- The D-Day landings
- The Seaman’s Mess
- Going to sea
- Wage slip
- Dorothy Irons
- British Seaman's Identity Card
- Sea Breezes
- Merchant navy badge
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